Fare thee well Iceland

Look, I'm a viking!

So that’s it.  Iceland done. Three and a half weeks here and all I can think is I can't wait to come back in the Summer!  I definitely had to do this trip in the Winter as I really wanted to see the Northern Lights (and did x 3 #winning), but there is heaps to do that you can't do in the Winter, like a lot of the hiking and the Lofthellier Caves looked like they'd be awesome and horse riding I'm sure would be much more fun if you weren't riding through a snowstorm!  But I did get to do some cool stuff like diving in Silfra fissure and a glacier walk.

 

 

 

 

I booked in to do ice climbing as well, but that got cancelled because of shitty weather.  That was doubly shitty because I met an American guy, EJ, who was hiring a camper with a few people and travelling around for a few days which sounded great fun. So I could have gone, but said no because of the ice climbing and then didn't get to do the ice climbing!

On the bright side though, it meant I was in Reykjavik for the folk festival held at the hostel.  It was great, all this local music from people with fantastic names like Bubbi Morthens, Snorri Helgason and Bjartmar Gudlaugsson.  And the music was fantastic too.

The best though was Bjartmar Gudlaugsson.  It was gold.  He was this older fellow and he was singing in Icelandic.  Everyone in the room except us knew all the words and were singing along. Then for one song everyone in the room were pissing themselves and I was like 'damn, he's singing a dirty song and I don't know what he's saying!'  And he totally was, I know it.  But then at the end of his set this woman ran up onto the stage and gave him a kiss. Then all these women were trying to touch him as he left and were trying to get photos. Hillary, a kiwi girl I met diving, was like 'Wow, he must be like the Rock God of Reykjavik.' 

Hold on to your panties ladies, it's the Rock God of Reykjavik

I quite liked the Café/Bars in Reykjavik, for such a small place there seems to be an awful lot of them.  We went out one night for happy hour but the place was so empty that the bar guy poured himself a drink and sat down with us.  But then this crazy dude showed up.  I asked him about his red nails and he told us the woman in the psych unit did them for him.  He was telling us all kinds of mad things then holding my hand, looking into my eyes and telling me ‘You are the most beautiful woman I have seen… today.’  Gee, thanks bloke.  And funnily enough the other girls were not at all offended by this statement.  So we decided to move on, but our new friend wanted to come, poor EJ got lumped with the job of telling him he couldn’t.  But the crazies are the exceptions, Reykjavik is pretty cool.

So I thought I'd leave you with some random Icelandic facts.

Whatever your budget is – double it!  Everyday things are a bit more expensive.  Touristy things are ridiculous - like $400 for an overnight tour that didn't even include dinner!  But you should just hire a car instead of doing all the tours anyway.  Much more fun.

Majority of homes use thermal hot water.  Great for the environment, you just have to get used to the hot water smelling like egg farts due to all the sulphur.

Icelanders leave their prams outside the shops and cafes – with the babies in them! – when it’s -1!  It's true I checked a couple to make sure.

 

Don't bring me down whingers!

 

On my last day I finally got to the famous blue lagoon.  And yes it really is that blue in real life.  In the morning I went down to wait for the bus.  I waited a little while and then just as I was wondering whether it was late or I was early it turned up.  We stopped to pick up some more people and they got on all huffy pointing at their watches and complaining.  Then a woman already on the bus started complaining about how many stops we were making, yelling at the driver and carrying on.  I kind of looked at her like 'WTF are you carrying on about?', she caught my look so switched her whinging to loud whispering in German to her husband.  Then we got to the last stop and more whingers got on.  They were all complaining about the bus being late and abusing the driver and then when he ignored them someone said 'oh god, he doesn't even speak English!'  Three points for you lady:

• If you knew anything about Iceland you would know that practically all Icelanders are bi-lingual
• You're in Iceland why should he speak English anyway
• You're on holidays, just settle the fuck down or if your schedule is so important get a bloody taxi!

But these people kept on and on, the girl sitting in front of me put her headphones on and I was like damn why didn't I bring mine.  After 15 min they were still going and I finally lost it and was like 'OH MY GOD! Enough of the whinging!'  Which was good because it stopped them yelling at the driver, but bad because then I copped it.  Some pompous English dick told me that they had 'every right to whinge' and I told him they were all carrying on about nothing so then one of the women said 'Oh great, we've even got the backpackers on board.  Just shut up.'  So I was about to lose my shit and absolutely rip into her, but then I figured they'd already ruined my day enough so I just ignored them and they finally shut up.

But then, when I got off the bus the girl sitting in front of me was standing there waiting for me.  When I saw her I was like 'Gee, glad that rides over.'  And she started laughing and said, 'They were horrible.  I was so happy when you said something to them.'  Me too, because now I had a Blue Lagoon buddy!  The end.

 

Whales and puffins and sharks oh my!

So this post is for the foodies out there.  For some reason I was expecting the food in Iceland to be pretty average.  Probably all the talk of Icelandic specialities like whale, puffin and fermented shark.

But happy to report I was misinformed.  From the hotdog stand, to drunken waffles, to the top restaurants in Reykjavik it was all great.  (Just to clarify, yes it was me that was drunk – not the waffles.)

So did I eat the whale and the fermented shark you ask.  Whale – yes.  Shark – no.  I think the worst thing about eating whale was the guilt because it actually was quite tasty.  Icelanders say that eating whale is not an issue here as there are so many of them - Minke's aren't endangered or anything.  But when you say that part of the issue is that they are too big to kill humanely they kind of just stare at you blankly.  But when in Rome... so I gave it a go and it was good.  It's a red meat and not fatty at all like imagined.  I also tried some horse, again really good and the puffin - not a big fan, it was kind of like duck I guess.  It's a bird but it's not a white meat.

Nasr found us some nice restaurants and although a bit more expensive than at home they were really nice were lovely - good atmosphere, lovely decor and fantastic food.  They all served yummy homemade breads with Icelandic butter which is so light it’s almost still cream and lava salt.

 

So Nasr, Ali & I went out to one of these restaurants after an afternoon in the pools.  Ali and I went for a swim and hung out in the hot tubs.  Nasr went for a massage relaxing massage but all that restfulness and post-massage calm disappeared after about 10 minutes in a restaurant with Ali.  I'm guessing Ali doesn't eat out much.  After asking Nasr a hundred questions about the menu and being overly-concerned about the lack of shrimp on the menu, he then asked the waitress a hundred questions about the lack of shrimp and finally order a bowl of chips.  The waitress took our order, turned to another table, then Ali was tapping her on the shoulder - when were his chips coming?  Nasr lost his shit at him - gee I laughed.

 

Another thing the Icelanders are a fan of is dried fish.  If you ask me it smells and tastes like cat food - but I liked it and went through a few bags. 

And the hotdogs.  They love the hotdog stand.  They are cheap and they have mustard and tomato sauce and fried onions. Yummo.  Think I went back about four times!  And the last time I went back I was a bit peckish so got two!

Horsies and huskies

So I decided to get out of Reykjavik and see a bit more of Iceland.  Akureyri (ak-u-reh-ree) is a small city in the north of Iceland.  It's about a 40 minute flight up there.  Internal flights in Iceland are done in quite small planes - kind of the size of a big bus with propellers that sound like they've got lawnmower engines.

It's a really pretty little town and when I got there it began snowing; big, fat, fluffy, flurries of cotton wool snowflakes like from English Christmas stories or rom-coms.  

I went horse-riding where you got to wear a nice big orange sumo-suit so you don't freeze your bits off.



Giddy up

I also went down to the local ice-hockey rink to see my first ice hockey match.  Still not sure of the rules of ice-hockey - that's if there are any rules.  But even in local leagues it's pretty rough and good fun to watch, but kind of like soccer in the fact that one team can seem to have control of the game for 90% of the time and still not win.  Dumb.

I also did a tour out to Lake Myvatn (mee-va).  I got on the bus and was like aww crap - I was the youngest person on the bus by about 30 years!  But the people on the tour were lovely.  There was an English couple - he sounded like Ringo Starr and she sounded like Mrs Bucket.  And they were all well travelled interesting people with lots of stories and places seen and adventures had, it was great.  I even had dinner the next night with a couple of them the next night.

Our guide who was a tourguide/hairdresser/bodybuilder took us to see the lake and there was a dog-sledding competition.  But when I went for a closer look I realised that all the people on the sleds were kids!  It was pretty cute.

I'm calling these guys Kujo and David Bowie

 
One of the places we went to on the tour was a place the guide called the Dark City.  It was like these amazing lava columns about 20 metres tall.  They spread out as far as the eye could see and with all the fresh snow looked amazing.  We stopped at a lookout to view them, but along the bottom there were walking trails and apparently it's a great area for hiking in the Summer.  So another reason to come back to Iceland in the Summer!!

  

 

Ice Ice Baby

Jökulsárlón is a glacial lake in the south east of Iceland.  It’s about 4-5 hours from Reykjavik so to get there you need a car or a tour.  Luckily for me, Nasr (backpacker from Hugi’s remember) met a couple of crazy Americans in a bar.  They happened to have a car and were happy enough to take Nasr and I along for the drive.

 

It was a great day; a fairly long drive, but good company so it was fun.  Adrian and Sarah were great value and True Americans.  Everytime they did something funny or dumb or said something to do with home they were like ‘AMERCIA!’ (world police style).  Apparently this must be done whenever you do something funny or dumb or brave or strong or right.   I think the worst thing about the whole day was we ran out of time – or maybe Sarah’s driving.  We’ll have to toss a coin on that one.  But we definitely didn’t get to spend enough time in the places we went to and there were places we wanted to go that we didn’t get to at all.

 

We stopped to look at the glaciers.  From a distance it's a bit creepy how they come down the mountain looking like a great wave.  Like someone has pressed pause on a tsunami.  What if someone unpaused that thing? 

 

This guy could be in trouble if there's too much hot weather 

 

 The glacial lagoon was awesome.  Beautiful still looking water and ice everywhere shining in the sun.  What I wasn’t expecting the birdlife and the seals! They were everywhere, just hanging out in the water, being seals.  Then across the road is the glacier beach.  Black sand beaches with random chunks of ice covering the entire beach.  Ice of all shapes and sizes, murky white ice and shiny clear glisten in the sun ice.  Another photographer’s paradise.  So pretty and if I had the time I’m sure I could have just wandered around for hours taking pictures of chunks of ice.  Ok so maybe I’m just easily amused.

 

 

 

You can also do boat tours of the lake – but not at this time of year.  So I think that’s about reason 23 as to why Kelly should come back to Iceland in the Summer.  

 

So coming home we were pretty late.  It got to after 9 and we were still an hour or so from Reykjavik when Nasr looks out the window and starts yelling ‘Holy shit, stop the car!’  Poor Adrian must have nearly had a heart attack, but he pulls over and we all get out and there are the Northern Lights.  Big and amazing and fantastic and just like the pictures!  The wind was wild and icy cold and in normal circumstances you wouldn’t stay out in it for more than five minutes, but there we were for half an hour watching them stretch across the sky from one end to the other.  They moved and danced, fading and reappearing, doing that thing where they look like powder falling.  We tried to take the impossible photos.  Balancing our cameras on the roof of the car when the wind was so strong it was not just moving our cameras, but the whole car!

But we got back in the car cold and happy.

 

 

Woah, that's one big one

Yesterday was a cold and snowy day in Reykjavik.  A perfect day for experiencing a little of the culture that this fine town has to offer.  So you all know where I went.

And well, it wasn't very big (aw c'mon, it had to be said).  Anyway, there was this big one.

Whale doodle

Humans are the peeny weeny on the end

Icelandic National Handball Team - Beijing Silver medalists

Yep, this ugly squishy son of a bitch is human.

Reindeer - so it turns out it wasn't Rudolph's nose that was red.

Tasty snack anyone?

Gimme a little lavan'

Icelandic places are like Sri Lankan surnames. 
Hard to read.  Impossible to pronounce.

 

Lava fields are everywhere in Iceland and I think they’re great.  Michael, Gabi & I caught a bus to the edge of town to go for a bit of a tramp around.  From a distance it looks like a rocky, barren terrain.  But upon closed inspection is filled with fauna in miniature.  A thick carpet of mosses in varying shades of grey, green and orange.  Tiny flowers that bloom even in the middle of winter.  Grasses of a myriad of colours flattened by the winds. 

 

 

 

The moss is so thick and soft that when you have a sneaky lay down you could close your eyes and believe you’re on a pile of cushions.  Trolls like to have their naps in lava fields.

 

Napping like a troll

The day we went was sunny but had an icy wind.  You could hear ice crunching underfoot and all the puddles were frozen over in crazy patterns.  The lava fields continued down to the beach, dark grey-green water lapping coldly against black rocks and there were a number of derelict buildings spotted here and there over the landscape.  A bit of a photographer’s paradise.